Changing Birds
by xylot3
Summary: Permanent Hiatus - J/E. Post-AWE. T for safety in future chapters. Will decides to give up on Elizabeth, and it was only a matter of time before a certain pirate captain arrived on the scene. So, yes, this is basically another "after AWE" fic.
1. Prologue

_Okay, I'd like to start off by promising to you that this is NOT a fake story. I had this posted when I was a Sparrabether, and I'm just reposting it and finishing it off when I reach that particular point. Regardless of whether you like me or not, please don't hold that against this story. It's JE, I promise you, and it will end as a JE fic. _

_That being said, please enjoy this as best you can. This is just the prologue, hence the WE implications, but everything else is JE in this fic._

_Pirates of the Caribbean belongs to the mouse._

6 YEARS EARLIER

Will Turner was about to leave his 10-year-old son William and his wife Elizabeth for another 10 years. What he was about to say was going to destroy his heart - not literally, as he physically had no heart, but emotionally, this was going to kill him slowly, stabbing harder and harder with each passing day. He took Elizabeth's hand and looked into her eyes.

"Elizabeth," he started.

Elizabeth looked at him lovingly. "Yes?"

"I have something important to tell you... I'm going to... to... I'm going..."

Elizabeth shushed him. "Get your thoughts together, and then tell me."

Will took a breath. "I... I'm..." He pinched himself. "I'm letting you go!" he blurted. "Elizabeth, I'm letting you go – I don't want you to be lonely all your life, and you only see me every 10 years, otherwise you're all alone, and I don't want you to die alone because there's a big chance that you'll die when I'm not here and..."

Elizabeth blinked, not believing what he'd said. "Why? Don't you love me? Don't you want to be with me? Don't you want to live your life with me?"

Will held back his tears, "Of course I love you! Of course I want to be with you! Of course I want to live my life with you! But because of this curse, it's not going to happen! So I want you to find someone else, so you don't live your life waiting for me."

Will kissed her goodbye. He knelt down in front of William, who had overheard and had tears streaming down his face. "I won't let mom marry someone else, Dad, I won't."

Will shook his head. "You have to let her. She needs someone." William shook his head wildly. "She's got you!" Will finally let tears overcome him. "I'm hardly ever here, William! I can't be by her side because of the curse!"

"I hate whoever put the curse on you! If I ever meet him, I'll kill him!"

Elizabeth shared a look with Will. A look that said, _He won't have much chance at that, Jack Sparrow was too cunning to kill just like that_.

William was sobbing helplessly. He ran back into their little hut. "I"LL KILL 'EM!" he screamed.

Will was going to run after him, but Elizabeth stopped him. "Sunset is here," she whispered softly. Will saw she was right. He had to go - now. "Goodbye, Miss Swann," he said, kissing her.

He left.


	2. Chapter 1

NOW

The moment Elizabeth opened her eyes, she knew something had happened. Something unexpected, but not – she sighed in relief – something bad. She got out of her bed and walked over to her son, who was still sleeping soundly. He left him there.

Elizabeth walked down to the beach where she had last seen Will on land. Further down the beach, she could see a ship.

The ship had black sails and was very familiar. She nearly laughed with surprise. Never, not in a million years, would she expect this ship to appear on the sand of her home.

The familiar face of the captain appeared. He greeted Elizabeth with a nod of his head. "Barbossa," Elizabeth said. "May I ask the reason for your landing here?"

Barbossa rolled his eyes in an annoyed way. "We got a bit lost on the way here, lass, 'tis all, because of a compass that doesn't work."

"My compass works fine," a voice cut in.

"Captain Sparrow," Elizabeth smirked, seeing another familiar face, an inexplicable jolt surging through her stomach.

"The reason we are here, Sparrow, is because of yer blasted compass! It supposedly pointed to the Fountain of Youth, but when we went around this island, it pointed ON the island, and as we all know, there's no fountain here."

"I hate to admit, but my compass must be playing up, because I want a lot of things, but this thing on the island, I'm not sure of, so therefore we must leave soon as possible." He said it all in one breath.

As he said this, a loud BANG erupted from the ship with a hole appearing in the side. Through the hole, Elizabeth could see Pintel holding a smoking match and Ragetti, ash-faced. Gibbs was laughing. Jack leaned over the side, glaring angrily. He walked out of sight and could be seen through the wide hole in the side. He confronted the two.

Jack yelled at Pintel and Ragetti for a while, who were trying to explain the situation. They then left, looking glum at the fact that they'd been given the job of repairing the hole, by themselves, with no-one else's help. William laughed along with his mother. It always gladdened him to see Elizabeth happy.

William wandered onto the Pearl – with his mother's permission of course - fascinated by the crew and the inner workings of the ship. He'd been on a ship before, of course, but the Flying Dutchman was rotting and old, and William had been too intimidated by the crew to pay too much attention to the rest of the ship.

William found he did not like Barbossa much, he thought Barbossa looked a little shifty. William didn't talk too much to Barbossa, and when he did, he kept it short.

William did not take much of a liking to Jack either. He felt Jack was sneaky, from the stories he'd heard, especially from his father. He was watching Jack swig a bottle of rum when he remembered his father telling him something.

"William, don't tell your mother, but I saw her with Jack Sparrow, one of the nine pirate lords, and one of the most stupid."

"What do you mean, you saw her with him?"

William remembered, at that moment, Elizabeth had walked into the room, and Will changed the subject to his crew.

He suddenly knew what he meant by "Jack being 'with' his mother", and he hated Jack for it. How dare this... this monster win his mother's heart!

William clenched his fist in fury, staring with hatred at the man before him.

He wanted to kill this man, this man that had destroyed his parents' relationship, even for a short while. The man that had made the curse active on his father. William's head was screaming at him to kill Jack before Jack left the island.

William realized he'd been staring at the sea for quite a while. Jack had disappeared into his cabin. He sighed and walked off the ship.

2 DAYS LATER

Barbossa was telling off the crew for sleeping in that morning, while William was watching from the sand. Much as he hated Barbossa, he enjoyed the sight of him yelling at others. Jack was lying down on the beach, talking with Elizabeth. That was the reason William was on the beach, but he couldn't help watching Barbossa. William couldn't hear what Jack was talking about to his mother until Barbossa finally shut up.

William sat on the sand, pretending to be examining a shell.

"Captain Sparrow, I really think you should reconsider. No-one will come here for a while, and I need to get to Port Royal. You had no problem whatsoever when I joined your crew some 17 years ago, so why reject me this time?"

"Well, luv, I doubt yeh're willing to work as one of the crew, and I really can't have another on the ship if they're not to be working. We're not a merchant ship, ye know!"

Barbossa was on the sand now. "I say let her on. Why not?"

William was suspicious. Why would Barbossa let a woman on board? He was just as superstitious as the rest.

Jack was thinking the same thing. He took Barbossa's arm and led him onto the ship. Neither was aware that William had followed them on.

William heard broken bits of their conversation.

"Sparrow, the reason I'm... and she always is... but when we're... open ocean... push Miss Swann... plank."

"Why, Hector, would you... her off?"

"So I can be... pirates. She's the only one... protest. I paid... other pirate lords a helluva lot of... them to vote me as... pirates at the next... court meeting."

"That's true, I was one... them. Okay, I guess we'll let Eli... the ship."

THE NEXT DAY

Outside, Jack and Elizabeth were standing out on the beach, watching Jack's crew scuttle about, repairing sails and scraping wood.

Jack, somewhat bored, threw his arm around Elizabeth's shoulders, smirking inwardly.

Elizabeth shivered. She felt... what? She turned her head toward the pirate captain.

William was seething with fury. He wouldn't have those beasts kill his mother. He couldn't afford to lose another parent. He walked outside to find Jack and Elizabeth close together. Too close.

William ran closer, holding his sword up.

Elizabeth closed her eyes. Jack leaned forward. Elizabeth opened her mouth slightly.

But when their lips finally touched something, it was cold metal. They opened their eyes, surprised.

William held his sword between the two. "Captain Jack Sparrow," William hissed. "I'll kill you. I swore I'd never let another capture my mother's heart. I swore I'd kill the man that set active the curse on my father. And, you, Captain, are that man."

Jack pushed a stricken Elizabeth out of the way.

William swung his sword at Jack, but Jack dodged it. William swung it again, missed again. He tried once more, but Jack caught the blade with his hand.

"Bit blunt, mate," he said, grinning and batting away the sword. William pulled the sword back and ran off, cursing and apologizing to his mother between sobs.

Jack comforted Elizabeth but showed no desire to kiss her again.

--

Barbossa was on the beach, patching a hole in his hat. A shadow fell over him. William's shadow. The tip of a sword appeared at Barbossa's neck.

"I overheard you yesterday," William hissed in his ear. "I overheard. You're only letting my mother on the ship because you want to push her off! You bribed the other pirate lords and shot Captain Jack!"

Barbossa laughed, a cruel laugh. "Actually he's just injured." He laughed again. "'Sides, what're ye going tuh to about it, boy?"

William kept still. "A fight." Barbossa raised a brow.

"To the death."

Barbossa was up in a flash. He unsheathed his sword.

"Done."

They were at each other. William had a blunt sword, though still sharp enough to kill. Barbossa's was newly stolen, sharp as Jack's wit.

The swords rang out,

They continued their fight for about two minutes before Barbossa got the upper hand. William was pinned on the sand. Barbossa had his sword tip on William's chest.

"You wanted a fight to the death, eh, boy? Well, there was the fight. Now, here's the death..." He swung his sword down.

Barbossa felt the tip of his sword touching the sand. He let go and pelted back onto the ship.

William felt like a complete baby when he screamed, but there was no-one else that would help him.

His world was disappearing. He could see Jack over him, yelling to Elizabeth to hurry. Elizabeth was screaming, but to William it was just a muffled cry. Elizabeth held William's chin, sobbing. William turned to Jack.

"I'm sorry, Captain," he choked.

He turned to his mom. "I love you... tell dad I tried..."

William closed his eyes for the final time.

Elizabeth cried over a young man that had died, like father, like son – a father she doubted, a father that was drifting away, a lover's serious light brown eyes darkening to a mischievous almost-black.


End file.
